


Masochism Tango

by freudensteins_monster



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Meet-Ugly, Sort Of, accident prone courtship, bucky's bad luck, everyone still lives in the tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 06:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18867871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: Accidents keep happening when Bucky's around Darcy. Once is just bad luck, but four times?





	Masochism Tango

**Author's Note:**

> A "Send me a title and I'll write a summary" post was going around tumblr and I managed to send myself one. "Masochism Tango" popped into my head, and this happened.
> 
> Masochism Tango: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE

The first time Bucky encountered Darcy was in a crowded Stark Tower elevator. She was teetering in a pair of fancy shoes, one of the heels of which tried to drill a hole into one of his feet. He hadn’t wanted to her lose her balance and have to reach out and steady herself on Greg from IT, who was trying to stare down her top, so he had grit his teeth and glared at the creep until he got the hint and bailed the next time the doors opened.

The next time he encountered Darcy he had startled her in the kitchen early one morning and had ended up getting hot coffee spilled all down his front. It had hurt like hell but he’d just grimaced in the face of her profuse apologies, said “don’t worry about it”, and hid in his room until long after the burns had healed.

The next time it had been cold and possibly mouldy coffee. He’d been sent up to Banner’s lab for something or other and she’d walked right into him on her way to wash Jane’s collection of discarded coffee cups.

A week later he’d seen her at the gym and broken her nose. It was a complete accident, he swore; he hadn’t even been the one sparring with her. She had been working with Natalia on the mats while he had been arguing with Sam about something stupid in between sets. He’d gone to punch Sam in the arm and the next thing he knew Darcy was getting a metal elbow to the nose. She’d promptly kicked him in the family jewels in retaliation.

He stayed the hell away from all public areas after that, anywhere she might go, despite everyone saying he was “being ridiculous” and “overreacting”. Between that and a couple of out-the-country missions, he managed to go a whole two months before he saw her again.

“I’m not going.”

“Are you… are you pouting?” Sam laughed.

“No,” Bucky huffed, recrossing his arms.

“Yes,” Steve sighed. “Come on, Buck. This charity event has been on the books for weeks. You told Pepper you’d go. Are you really going to go back on your word?”

“Is _she_ going to be there?” Both Steve and Sam shot him an exasperated look. “Then I’m not going.”

“Fine, then you have to tell Pepper that you can’t make it. In person,” Steve added sharply before Bucky could pass the message on via JARVIS.

“C’mon man, stop pouting. You’re a grown ass assassin for crying out loud.”

“Bite me, Wilson,” Bucky growled.

Sam smirked, clapping Steve on the shoulder on his way out of Bucky’s apartment. “I’m going to go get ready. You deal with this.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” Steve grumbled, eyeing his best friend as he tried to bury himself deeper into the couch. “Bucky, you’re being ridiculous. There’s going to be hundreds of people there; you probably won’t even see her.”

“With my luck? I’ll take that bet.”

“Fine. If you go and end up bumping into her again I’ll bring all your meals to you in your room - no more dragging you out of the tower for dinner - for a month. If you don’t,” Steve warned, “You come to every team dinner, and you come with me whenever I want to go out for a meal – no excuses – for two months.”

Bucky took more than a little pleasure in making a show of considering Steve’s offer for a solid minute before responding.

“Deal. But I’m not wearing a tie.”

Two hours later Bucky found himself lost in a sea of well-dressed bodies. He’d put in almost a full hour of mingling and glad-handing and resisting the urge to punch rich assholes in the face and figured not even Pepper wouldn’t begrudge him making a quiet retreat. From his current position, the fastest way to the nearest exit was straight across the open floor, but the second he left the relative safety of the dining tables the music started up and he was surrounded on all sides by dancing couples. He tried to manoeuvre through them without making too much of a scene and made it to the middle of the room before he froze; Steve had lost the bet. It was like the crowd had parted and there was Darcy, in a blood red dress that left little to his imagination despite its modest cut, looking just as awkward as he felt trapped by all this happy couples. One such couple spun wide and practically pushed Darcy into his waiting arms.

“Care to dance?” seemed like the only thing to say under the circumstances.

“I don’t know,” Darcy teased. “Do you think we can make it to the end of the song without killing each other?”

Bucky laughed as he took her hand in his, shooting her a cocky smile straight out of the 1940’s. “Only one way to find out, doll.”


End file.
